Merethe Lindstrom - Days in the History of Silence

NOT SO LONG ago I woke and saw that a wasp had come into the bedroom. Simon has developed an allergy to wasps, or perhaps he has always had it, in theory a sting could kill him. The window was open, it must have come in that way, managing to force its way through the flimsy curtain covering the opening, perhaps only a few minutes earlier, or it could have circled around the room for a while, maybe it had not woken me until it approached the bed. It seemed confused, it was making a noise that was low and intense.

He was sleeping, I noticed that the wasp was moving along the exposed part of his forearm, he was sleeping on his side with one hand under his cheek and the other naked arm across his head, as though trying to protect it. He often sleeps like that. It was early morning. I slept deeply and must have awoken gradually although I felt I had awoken abruptly, and only a few inches in front of me, I saw the movement. I remained lying completely still and watched. Close up it was large, even when I looked at it compared to his arm, his hand. Simon’s skin, pale with freckles over the back of his hand. The wasp remained motionless on his skin, lifting and lowering its wings.

Both equally helpless, the wasp that probably had no harmful intention, and Simon’s bare arm that he was unable to pull away in his sleep, the danger he could not see. They were left to their own devices.

I was the only one who could do something.

If he had been awake, he would have lain completely still, stiff, while we both would have expected me to get rid of the insect.

I stared at it, now it flew to the skin beside his temple.

After a spell it took off, circled the bed, resting somewhere on the white bedside table, and so on around the room, I got up, found a newspaper and chased it toward the open window. When I lay down in bed again, Simon had wakened, he looked at me, in the same way as I had looked at the wasp, without making any move.

He said: Did you get it out?

I got it out, I said, surprised to hear his voice.

Thanks, he said.

I remember I remained lying there looking at the ceiling, with him lying silently at my side. He did not say anything more.

We were to celebrate our wedding anniversary. It was only a few weeks after the dismissal, and after Marija had left. A red-letter day. Simon and I did not say anything about the fact that she had been looking forward to it, that we had discussed and planned the celebration with her as well. We talked about a family party, perhaps a trip, we had invited the girls, we wanted to mark the day with a gathering. We spent the days picturing the party in our minds, it gave us something to do, to look forward to.

I had risen early on the day and set the long table in the living room, we were planning to have much of the party outside in the garden, but the weather looked uncertain. Nevertheless Simon labored at hanging up lanterns in the trees. We had not attempted that before. He had an idea that the lanterns would give a lovely illumination when darkness fell.

I had received a phone call from Helena, she was not feeling too well, I told her to take it easy, she sounded so unhappy, I thought there was perhaps something more to it, something at work, or with her boyfriend. But she brushed it aside. She was exhausted, she said. I should have asked her why she was exhausted, perhaps she would have told me then, warned me. Would it have spared Simon, us. Would it have made things any different?

I see us going around in the house that morning, we take out the beautiful brass candlesticks, hold the tablecloth above the table, him at one end, me at the other, it hovers like a sail and lands on the tabletop. He fetches plates and cutlery, polishes the candlesticks one more time as well as the little dessert spoons.

They are expected around four o’clock, we have plenty of time, we do everything slowly, carefully so as not to use up the tasks too quickly, there is still a while before they are to arrive. Besides, these very tasks hold a particular pleasure that should not be denied, this sense of anticipation because we are already familiar with these occasions, we know all about the good, gratifying pattern they normally follow.

The girls and their husbands. The children running in and out of the veranda door, between the table with soft drinks and goodies and back to the garden, red in the face and perspiring, absorbed in the game outdoors. The teenagers meeting up on the little raised platform, gawky in their stiff clothes, envious of the children for a while before hitting upon their own version or perversion of the game with the children as lowly servants. The husbands, uncomfortable until they have had a beer, gather under the eaves on the terrace, their trouser legs pulled up, their jackets over the chair arms now that there is heat in the air, it will probably be a warm afternoon and evening. Simon is talking to them, he likes that sense of contact, although none of them has an occupation similar to his. They are IT professionals, and one is a teacher.

It has happened so many times. That’s the way it usually goes. Later I think about it, I know how it should have progressed, how the party should have been.

They were to arrive about four o’clock. And so the tablecloth lands on the table, the candlesticks are shining much too brightly, Simon calls out to me twice, I think they’re coming now, he means he can hear the cars parking up in the street. The living room is transformed, or reemerges as the living room in which similar parties have been held previously, the living room that can be viewed in photographs we have taken during festivities like this, but that disappears between family parties and is handed over to the daily round once more. It is so obvious that the children used to ask about it even when they were small, then it was their birthdays we were celebrating, an odd time we had a visit from couples, friends of ours: There is another living room inside the living room. The little ones wondered where it went when we were alone.

We think we hear cars continually, we stop and listen. But the voices, the footsteps on the driveway remain outside.

THE DOORBELL RANG. We looked at each other, and he stood up in his newly purchased suit. I saw what he was thinking: at last.

Now they are here, I said. I stepped quietly toward the door, I did not want to do anything different from how it usually went. Even the act of opening the door was part of the joy of the whole thing.

A neighbor was standing outside. I could have seen her face through the glass of the narrow alcove window at the side of the door if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with opening the door quickly, I was so sure that I already had them on my retina, the girls, their husbands, their families. She explained something about a community project among several neighbors. And as she stood before me, without excusing herself or asking if she was disturbing us, my only thought was why don’t you go away. I was not listening. I was so taken aback. Simon still stood on the same spot when I returned to the living room.

No, was all I said. As though to a question that had not been asked.

Oh well, he said.

I went into the kitchen and placed plastic wrap over the sandwiches. I pulled out the plug from the percolator, it seemed as though the action was important, logical and right. I remained standing looking at the calendar. I closed my eyes.

I may have stood there for a while. What are you doing? he said. I turned around, and he was standing in the doorway. Do you think they’re coming? he said. Of course they’re coming, I said to him. Yes, he said.

We sat down in the living room, outside the light was fading, as it does on summer evenings when darkness does not fall abruptly, but gradually. I put on a CD, the music drifted through the rooms. It enveloped us. But at some point, he walked over and turned it down, even though the volume was already so low that it could not possibly have drowned out the doorbell.